6 Actors Who Almost Died Filming 2013’s Biggest Movies

Actors and actresses always go above and beyond the call of duty when filming a movie and there have been countless tales of many a crazy actor risking life and limb for the art of cinema. You just need to look no further than Tom Cruise’s death deifying antics on that Qatar skyscraper in Mission: Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol to see how far even the most comfortably richest of Hollywood talent will look the grim reaper dead in the eye for the sake of a scene.

Often of course, this can lead to serious accidents during filming, which nevertheless makes for an entertaining read for us mere mortals to scoff at while living our own boring workaday lives, but obviously a worry for the people involved.

While jealousy may be the real reason we take so much joy at the misfortune of the rich and famous, who doesn’t like finding out what really goes on behind the scenes that we don’t hear about with film-making?

We admire enough actors and actresses for doing their own stunts and putting their body on the line when it all goes well, so why shouldn’t we see the proverbial bloopers?

Here are six actors or actresses who have thankfully survived almost-fatal accidents during filming this year’s biggest films. In no particular order of severity, but all equally entertaining, I present to you danger, humour, and horror intertwined.

Crippy Cooke, 23, is a freelance Football Writer contributing to What Culture. He's had work featured on Zoo, MSN, London 24, The Telegraph, The Huffington Post, and was recently named Writer of the Year on FTBpro - while also a nominee for Best Male Blog in the Football Blogging Awards.

When I saw “Now You See Me” I was wondering how they filmed the tank scene, since it obviously looked very dangerous for Isla Fisher. Apparently it was incredibly dangerous – that must have been a nightmare for her! Did someone forget safety precautions, or were the precautions not enough?

“We admire enough actors and actresses for doing their own stunts and putting their body on the line when it all goes well…” Yet we don’t even know, less remember, a stunt double’s name/face while we “admire” those “putting their bodies on the line”

It’s actually Disney that would control that, they have owned Marvel a few years now. Even when Marvel was an independent company they still just sold the rights and had no actual control on set. Hence why different studios made the different movies (and still do in Spider-Man’s case until Sony’s contract expires)

In ghost protocol Tom cruise was climbing the tallest building in the world. This building is known as the Burj Khalifa and it is not located in Qatar. It is in Dubai. No research done on this makes the journalist look abit dumb

Author needs to do some research. Thrown from the reigns makes no sense. One, it’s rein as in part of the bridle. Reign is something completely different. Two, you can’t get thrown from the reins. Maybe you ment saddle? I’ve seen the video. I ride horses. It was nothing. Worse most get from something like that is waking up very sore for the next week. Anyone who rides seriously has probably been thrown worse and more then just once. He was being babied and is acting it up. The mere fact that he was saying the horse had it out for him already lowers him on my books. If the horse really had it out for him the horse would not miss. That horse was awesome and jumped over him.

Isla Fisher didn’t nearly drown at all, her handcuffs got a little stuck when she didn’t expect it and she released them without any problem. She even says herself that falling over a wall onto her knee ripping the skin off, was the worst part of filming ‘Now You See Me’

With the 2 other mistakes pointed out, by others, I expect the author just read sensationalised entertainment articles and lumped a few together without fact checking.

Well, Jason Statham was in the British Diving squad when he entered the movie business, but that highlights the importance of health and safety in movie making, not every actor/actress is a trained athlete.

Somebody mentioned Jacky Chan earlier, and that was very true, this fellow probably has more screws in his body than your motorbike! Not that I really like his movies nor him as a person, but one has to admire his dedications (when he was young).

How on earth does this guy think he is a legit freelance writer? Doesn’t check fact and can’t tell the difference between ‘reign’ and ‘rein’? Also, whats with the ‘greatly harmed’ and ‘greatly wrong’ in the Depp article? Honestly, it just sounds so incredibly clunky. Bad writing from a bad writer. This article was actually quite embarrassing to read.

Depp was riding a horse named Scout when the saddle came loose and he was thrown from the reigns – left barely hanging on while being dragged 25 yards.
So, Johnny Deep, the ‘reigning’ heart throb was dragged by the ‘reins’…good thing it wasn’t ‘raining’.
Only thing worse than silly articles is spelling errors in silly articles. (His name was misspelled in first line, reign/rein is line four.)

I have to call “b.s.” on the Thor story. The actress didn’t “almost die.” She messed up her back and her shoulder and was out of action for a month. But it happened off set, and had nothing to do with a scene being filmed. So – bull.

If you are going to name the places where movies were filmed at, make sure you get the correct location and facts right. Mission Impossible 4 tower scene was filmed at the Burj Khalifa which is not in Qatar, it is in Dubai, United Arab Emerates (UAE). And YES I have been to the tower there at least half a dozen times, did the tour as well. Just saying.

It’s no joke that some of the scenes and filing for movies can leave actors/actresses with injuries or close to death experiences. It goes to show that a lot of them are willing to go above and beyond the call of duty to finish their projects.

“If only his crewmate wasn’t shouting ‘Jason!’ during the incident, it may have been a very interesting piece of footage to consider using on the film –
was the crewmate in the shot? they could have easily recreated the sounds of the truck hitting the water and stuff if the ‘Jason!’ shouting was only audible and not visual.